Welcome to ICJS Social Science - a monthly newsletter where we bring you recent developments in the diverse fields of social science. Learn more about us here.
This month, we will look at research on Collective Action. Collective action broadly refers to people working together to achieve a common goal for the group and themselves. Examples would include social movements for equality, or governance of common pool resources (like fisheries, for example) in a sustainable way. But a lot of research on collective action also focuses on collective action problems. These are situations where engaging in collective action would benefit the group (and its individuals), but somehow the individual has an incentive to not join in the collective action. A classic example is mitigating climate change. While it is in our (and our fellow human beings’) best interest to take collective action and reduce our carbon footprint, we, by ourselves, don’t have much incentive to do it. Why take public transport when we have the convenience of a car? Forsaking the car will inconvenience me a lot, but my one car will hardly have any effect on the climate problem. In this issue of our newsletter, we bring to you recent advances in the field of collective action and collective action problems.
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Why do people engage in collective action? What motivates individuals to join a social movement? Is it a combination of factors? How influential are factors internal to a person? And what about external factors that prompt the need for collective action? Using a meta-analysis, researchers have tried to conceptualize the motivations and constraints for individuals to engage in collective action.
The authors create a dual-chamber beating heart as a metaphorical model for participants in a social movement. The participant’s beating heart has two chambers: social identity and morality, which collaborate to pump the feelings of group-based injustice (e.g., anger) and the belief that the group will be efficacious. Together, these four factors motivate collective action. A key to this model is the addition of morality - something that had not yet been studied much as a unique factor contributing to collective action.
With this model, researchers could potentially study how this model works when embedded in a network of individuals. Or they could build on this model to introduce new variables. They could also look at the predictions of this model and whether there are any differences in the actual observed behavior. This dual-chamber heart model to conceptualize motivations of collective action can be the first step in many different directions.
In this paper, authors explore the role of system-justification (people psychologically justifying the existing social structures, even at the cost of their own interests) in engaging in collective action. 🇺🇸 🇬🇧
In this paper, authors introduce an approach where thought, feeling, motivation, and action for collective action are woven together, and describe how this approach can help research on collective action. 🇦🇹 🇺🇸
Authors find how triggering a specific psychological feeling—collective nostalgia (a shared longing for a country’s past, for example)—impacts collective action. 🇳🇱 🇬🇧
(B) Intergroup contact and social change: An integrated Contact-Collective Action Model (🇨🇭 🇺🇸 🇳🇿 🇬🇧)
The struggle for social equality involves collective action against injustice. And in such situations, there are typically two groups of people: the disadvantaged and the advantaged. Previous research has suggested that positive interactions between these groups on the one hand reduces the support by the disadvantaged group for social change. On the other hand, it increases the support for social equality among the advantaged group. But when can positive interactions increase the support for social action among both groups?
Researchers have formulated a model called the Integrated Contact-Collective Action Model (ICCAM). This model integrates the effects of several variables affecting intergroup interaction, and explains how that impacts the support for collective action. For example, the model suggests that more positive and close forms of intergroup interaction have different impacts depending on the form of support for social change: disadvantaged groups might be less likely to engage in costlier forms of collective action such as participating in strikes, but nevertheless not drastically change their engagement in less costly forms such as signing a petition.
This research has implications for policy-makers—particularly for fostering the right kind of intergroup contact. The authors have suggested how to structure the contact interventions based on their model. They believe that first, there needs to be a mutual climate of trust between groups before discussing existing inequalities. Further research could test out these suggestions empirically.
Researchers find that greater distance (of both space and time) to a victim of injustice makes people less likely to engage in collective action on behalf of the victims. 🇺🇸
In this paper, researchers look at the effect of positive, as well as negative intergroup contact and its effects on collective action. 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇪🇸
Researchers have proposed an integrated model to improve intergroup relations and promote collective action to reduce inequalities. 🇪🇸 🇦🇺 🇵🇹
(C) The Role of Online Media in Mobilizing Large-Scale Collective Action (🇸🇬 🇨🇳)
Collective action is mobilized by individuals interacting with each other. In this day and age, social media is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of interactions. What is the role of social media, then, in collective action? With how much data social media provides us, can we use it to get more nuanced findings on the role of social media networks?
Researchers analyzed Twitter data from the 2020 Hong Kong protests, particularly, the diffusion of information via the tweets (asking which tweets were more likely to go viral). They found that (a) messages by users in the peripheral part of the network (further away from a cluster) were more likely to diffuse compared to central users and (b) messages by those connecting others within closed communities were more likely to diffuse than the ones generated by users who acted as a bridge between different clusters.
These findings can help us understand information spread in social networks better—and their subsequent impact on collective action. The role of social media, particularly, compared to conventional sources of information, can be better understood. In future, researchers can look at the combined impact of both social media and offline interactions on mobilizing collective action.
Long before social media networks existed, rail and telegraph were the modes of information spread. This paper shows how rail and telegraph networks drove the spread of the Women’s Temperance Crusade in the 1870s. 🇺🇸
Read this paper to find the impact of family networks on the participation in political activism of Latino immigrants in the USA. 🇺🇸
See this paper for an insight into how online collective action is related to offline collective action and the role of social media. 🇳🇱
(D) How Collective-Action Failure Shapes Group Heterogeneity and Engagement in Conventional and Radical Action Over Time (🇦🇺 🇨🇦 🇺🇸)
Past research, to a large extext, has looked at the impact of individual factors on collective action. It has also looked at structural and environmental factors that affect collective action. But what about the outcome of the collective action itself? That is, how does a movement's failures or successes contribute to the sustenance of the movement over time? Researchers used the data before and after the 2017 marriage-equality debate in Australia to find out.
The authors find that success of the movement leads to unity. However, failure leads to varied responses. Some people almost fully dis-engage with the movement. The authors call them 'resigned acceptors.' Others moderately disidentify themselves with the movement and decrease their investment in it (moderates). However, some people stick with the movement, either in the same way as they did previously (stay-the-course opponents), or by using new tactics (innovators). The authors also found that people with higher levels of anger towards the government, more belief that their groups will be effective, and greater social identification with other members of the movement, maintained their investment and support for their cause over time even after failure.
Future research could examine the actions of each of the subgroups after failure. Which ones are more likely to engage in violence? Can the proportion of people in each subgroup help determine whether or not the movement dies down? This research could be helpful in predicting the course of collective action—and its success.
In this paper, researchers look at the emotional and behavioral consequences of participating in collective action on the participants, and particularly their feelings towards themselves and others. 🇩🇪 🇬🇧
This paper describes the changes in the course of collective action over time, the reasons for it, and the different ways in which the participants can respond. 🇦🇺 🇨🇦 🇺🇸
In this paper, authors look at the Kenyan fisheries co-management closely, analyzing how conflict and collective action are inter-related in the context of socio-ecological and governance changes. 🇦🇺 🇩🇪
(E) Leveraging collective action and environmental literacy to address complex sustainability challenges (🇺🇸)
Climate change is a pressing collective action problem: reducing our impact on the climate requires us to do things that we don’t like, but if all of us act in the same irresponsible way, our future is no longer sustainable. As individuals, we know what to do to contribute towards building a better future, but how do we spur collective action? This paper tries to answer this question.
The authors define a term called ‘‘collective environmental literacy,” which encompasses the synergy of individual and aggregate actions and the context in which they take those actions. The features of collective environmental literacy are that it is dynamic (it reflects the changing nature of issues), synergistic (the group effort is more than a sum of individual efforts), shared (the pool of resources is shared), and multi-scalar (its scale is both at the individual and group level).
This definition and its elaboration have implications for all authorities working on addressing sustainability challenges. It outlines the holistic nature of the situation, the barriers to collective action, and the importance of the synergy between individuals and the group. Further, this definition can guide the formulation of policies and efforts for a sustainable future.
This paper gives us insight into the complicated decision making process of action against climate change, highlighting how climate change is a layered collective action problem. 🇺🇸
In this book chapter, see how collective action about the environment can occur in multiple coordinated ways, not necessarily as a formal social movement. The chapter also analyzes how differences in, say, ideology of organizations working towards the same goal impacts collective action. 🇮🇹
This paper shows individual-level psychological processes behind the decision to engage in collective action for climate justice. 🇩🇪
(F) COVID-19: Large-scale collective action, government intervention, and the importance of trust (🇸🇪)
The COVID-19 pandemic, among other things, was a typical collective action problem. To prevent the spread of the disease—that is, achieve collective good—people had to make decisions that were not in their short-term individual best interest. They had to stay at home, mask up, and comply with strict measures that their government had set for them. How exactly did the individual factors and external factors (government measures) interact with each other, and how did it affect the pandemic?
Authors argue that trust is a key factor to understanding different world responses to the pandemic. More specifically, it is reciprocal trust, both among people, and between the people and the government. When there is more trust, the authors assert, the government is better positioned to open up a wider range of policy options that they can implement.
This research views COVID-19 as a collective action problem and arrives at the conclusion that trust played an important role. There are many other researchers that arrive at the same conclusion by viewing COVID-19 through a different lens. Taken together, this research can help guide government policies based on their country’s sociocultural factors.
In this paper, researchers show that in post-earthquake Nepal, social capital was a key factor enabling trust, which increased the collective action to contribute towards large-scale recovery. 🇺🇸
See this paper to understand the interplay between interpersonal trust and trust in the institution relating to collective action for agri-environmental management. 🇳🇱 🇩🇪
This paper talks about the role of trust in the collective action for a market-based reform policy in China. 🇩🇪
Special Mention
Do check out this article on how people can take collective action to improve the field of artificial intelligence!
Research Community Map
This month’s newsletter featured research from 3 US States, and 9 countries
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